Stepping inside North Korea

Cuisine
Each day, our breakfast consisted of toasted crustless white bread, a cold little omelet, and instant coffee with powdered milk. Lunch was usually soup of broth and vegetables, rice, and seven or eight bowls of boiled cabbage, dried fish, bean sprouts, bean paste, tofu, and some items that defied standard culinary nomenclature. Dinner one night was a Korean version of sukiyaki heated over a Sterno can. Another night we went to a duck barbecue restaurant where we grilled thinly sliced pieces of roasted duck and duck fat. The guide asked me if Korean duck is as good as Chinese Peking duck. With my quest for a red pin in mind, I choked down a piece of grilled fat and said, "It’s better." Ever the optimist, I asked the waitress if white wine was available. She said “white?” and I said yes. She left and returned a bit later with a glass of hot milk. She got the white part right.

The DMZ (Demilitarized Zone)
We passed four checkpoints on the two-and-a-half-hour drive to the border with South Korea, and at each, a uniformed soldier stopped us and demanded to see our papers. The guides complied, showing them our yellow permit. Yellow is apparently reserved for sensitive visits such as ours. When we arrived at the final checkpoint, we were, for some reason, told to get out of our car and walk through the guarded gate. Our car met us on the other side at which point a soldier climbed into our car “to protect us from the U.S.” as we drove the final stretch to the border. He used the short drive to fire questions at me such as “What do you think of Bush and the war? Do you realize that the U.S. aggression started the Fatherland Liberation War? ... We did not so much as throw a stone at them ... Why doesn’t the U.S. leave Korea and allow us to reunify?”

We drove to the building where the armistice was signed in 1953. Since peace was never formally declared, both sides stand guard at the border and watch each other day and night. The South Korean guards face North, obviously, but so do the North Koreans — presumably to watch over their own people, and any stray impulses to flee southward.

Famine
In the course of our trip to the DMZ, we spoke (in hushed tones) to an Australian World Food Agency representative posted in North Korea. He said that more than one million North Koreans have died of famine in recent years. Chinese and Russian subsidies ended in the 1990s and the DPRK ran out of food and fuel. Because eighty percent of North Korea is mountainous, every square inch of arable land is cultivated. And because the DPRK does not let the fields lay fallow for even one season, the land is exhausted from overuse and lack of proper fertilizer. The Australian official told us that despite its desperate need for help feeding its people, the DPRK expelled many of the food aid workers so as not to let the world think it needed them. The food shortage is apparently compounded by the lack of machinery and fuel to assist with planting and harvesting. We saw perhaps three tractors in ten hours of driving out in the country, and the occasional skinny ox pulling a wooden plow. Most farming is done by hand. City residents and soldiers are brought to the fields to help out. We saw hundreds of such "volunteers" in one area. Also a few small herds of goats and ducks, but otherwise, no farm animals.

The U.S.S Pueblo
The U.S.S. Pueblo, the American “spy ship” captured by the North Koreans in 1968 when it allegedly strayed into DPRK waters (the U.S. insists it was in international waters) lies at anchor on the bank of the river that flows through Pyongyang. The captain and 82 crew members were captured. President Lyndon Johnson at first said the Pueblo was on a research mission but intelligence found in the ship by the North Koreans, later shared with the Soviets, showed it was on a military intelligence mission. The crew was tortured by the Koreans and signed confessions of spying. After eleven months of wrangling, the crew was allowed to return to the United States but the Pueblo was kept as a “trophy.” Upon boarding, we were shown a video of the story to make sure we understood the “lies” President Johnson told and the “espionage” practiced by the U.S. We listened quietly and without comment.

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Stamps
They come without glue. The hotel postal desk kindly glued my stamps to my postcards. I was told they will also read all the postcards before sending them on. I wrote messages accordingly.

Popular culture
The DPRK film festival shows films from China and Russia as well as some local fare. Our minder told me she has seen American movies at the university: “Gone With The Wind,” “The Sound of Music,” and “Love Story.” She asked if Clark Gable is still alive.

Departure
I was never given that red pin.

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